Abstract: The papers include personal and business correspondence, manuscripts and published articles, and personal documents and photographs,
and pencil drawings dating from Heinrich Mann's years in France, 1933-1940 and Los Angeles, 1940-1950.

creator:
Mann, Heinrich, 1871-1950

Scope and Content

Collection contains personal and business correspondence, manuscripts and published articles, short stories and reviews, personal
documents and photographs, and pencil drawings dating from Heinrich Mann's years in France, 1933-1940 and Los Angeles, 1940-1950.

Heinrich Mann (1871-1950), one of the foremost German writers of the twentieth century, lived almost penniless and seemingly
forgotten in Los Angeles for nearly a decade before his death in 1950. Heinrich Mann was the elder brother of Nobel Prize
winning novelist Thomas Mann. Despite his name and literary stature, Heinrich Mann remained virtually unknown in this country.
By contrast, in pre-Hitler Germany, Heinrich had been both respected by fellow writers and popular with readers, perhaps even
more so than his brother.

Heinrich Mann began actively pursuing a career in writing in the 1890s after failing as a publisher's apprentice. He first
began as a critic and editor, then turned his talents to short stories and novels. The novel Im Schlaraffenland (In the Land
of Cockaigne), published in 1901, proved his literary skill. Although he had achieved a degree of literary success in the
period before World War I, his works were not widely read. Not until Der Untertan (The Patrioteer) appeared in 1918 did he
experience popular success. In the United States, Mann never gained wide recognition as a writer; and he is still best known
for the 1930 film "The Blue Angel," which was adapted from his novel Professor Unrat (Small Town Tyrant).

As the Nazis assumed power in February 1933, Mann was one of the first intellectuals to flee Germany. His close ties to France
made his exile in Southern France relatively easy and allowed him to continue writing for an appreciative audience. Mann remained
in France until the country fell to German occupation, whereupon he and his wife, Nelly, fled Europe. For Mann, then nearly
seventy years old, the escape across the Pyrenees on foot was extremely arduous.

Like most German exiles during World War II, Mann faced great financial difficulties in the United States. Away from European
soil, he lost much of his sympathetic French audience, not to mention his larger readership in Germany. Luckily, his first
year in Los Angeles was free of hardship because of a one-year contract with Warner Brothers Pictures previously arranged
for Mann by fellow exiles. However, after the completion of this contract, and until his death in 1950, Mann was without a
regular salary and was dependent on assistance from his family and friends.

Heinrich Mann lived in several locations during his decade in Southern California. He and his wife lived first in Beverly
Hills at 264 S. Doheny Drive and between 1942 and 1948 at 301 S. Swall Drive. It is in this home that his wife, Nelly, committed
suicide in 1944. For his final two years, Mann lived in Santa Monica at 2145 Montana Avenue.

Mann died in March 1950 shortly before his scheduled return to Europe. He was buried in Santa Monica at Woodlawn Cemetery.
However, in 1961 his remains were removed and relocated to former East Berlin.

In spite of the difficulties which he faced, Mann wrote some of his greatest works during his years in exile, including Die
Jugend des Koenigs Henri Quatre (1935; Young Henry of Navarre), Der Atem (1949; The Breath) and his autobiographical Ein Zeitalter
wird besichtigt (1945; An Age is Examined).

Heinrich Mann's years in Southern California: 1940-1950.

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Exile Studies Librarian
at ullmann@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items
and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.